A federal gun case against President Joe Biden’s son Hunter opened Monday with jury selection, following the collapse of a plea deal that would have avoided the spectacle of a trial so close the 2024 election. First lady Jill Biden was seated in the front row of the courtroom, in a show of support for her son.( )

In a statement, the president said that as a dad he has “boundless love for my son, confidence in him, and respect for his strength.”

“I am the President, but I am also a Dad,” he said, adding that would have no further comment on the case. “Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today.”( )

Hunter Biden, who spent the weekend with his parents, has been charged in Delaware with three felonies stemming from a 2018 firearm purchase when he was, according to his memoir, in the throes of a crack.( )

 addiction. He has been accused of lying to a federally licensed gun dealer, making a false claim on the application used to screen firearms applicants when he said he was not a drug user, and illegally having the gun for 11 days.

READ MORE......... 

( )

New Israeli strikes killed 16 people in Rafah Tuesday, first responders said, as an incursion into the southern Gaza city, which once had over a million Palestinians, expands.( )

The latest attacks occurred in northwest Rafah, according to The Associated Press (AP), citing the Palestinian Red Crescent and the Palestinian Civil Defense. The strikes, which took place overnight in the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood, were conducted in the same area as the deadly Israeli attack over the weekend, which killed at least 45 Palestinians, sparking international outrage.( )

The Sunday attack targeted a humanitarian zone, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged Monday that the strike on civilians was a “tragic mistake” and called for an investigation.( )

Tuesday’s strike, which occurred in the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood, presents further escalation in Rafah, an area that was once considered one of the last remaining places for Palestinians fleeing the military operation to shelter.( )

Since the beginning of Israel’s steady incursion toward Rafah, once seen as a place of refuge for displaced Palestinians, around 1 million civilians have fled the southern city, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the main humanitarian agency providing relief to Palestinians in Gaza. Those who have fled the city are scattered around in tents. ( )

The U.S. and other Israel allies have cautioned Tel Aviv against executing a full-throttled invasion into Rafah, with President Biden warning that he would halt offensive weapons transfers.( )

Israel has argued the operation needs to proceed in order to eradicate militant group Hamas and return the remaining hostages that were taken on Oct. 7, when around 1,200 Israelis in the south of the country were killed by a Hamas-led terrorist attack.( )

Following the onset of the war, Israel launched an offensive into Gaza that, so far, has killed over 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, a total count that does not differentiate between civilians and fighters.( )

The latest movement also comes after the U.N.-backed International Court of Justice ruled Friday that Israel must immediately stop its military operations in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

READ MORE......... 

Iurevicz, a philosophy student at the TSU State University in Tbilsi, the capital of Georgia, belongs to one of a myriad of protest groups sprouting out of universities and schools that have been driving the mass protests against the “foreign agents” law being introduced in the east European country.

They have been horrified by the potential repercussions of forcing civil society organisations and the media that receive more than 20% of their revenues from abroad to register as “organisations serving the interests of a foreign power”.

The new law, adopted by parliament on Tuesday, is regarded by critics at home and internationally as a copy of that introduced in Russia in 2012 by Vladimir Putin to silence dissenting voices.

The EU says the law will reduce Georgia’s chances of joining the 27-member bloc. And a deluge of anti-western rhetoric from leaders in Tbilisi, including the prime minister, prompted Washington on Wednesday to warn Georgia, a former Soviet state, not to become an “adversary”. That intervention has already affected the share price of Georgia’s banking sector.Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets. Georgia’s past feels very present.The protest group in which Iurevicz is active is called Georgian Students for a European Future. It is regarded as centrist, but the ideological underpinnings of this uprising cannot be pigeonholed. There is the Students for Liberty, which has some libertarian tendencies, and a group called Wave, which includes environmentalists but vehemently describes itself as “not leftist”.

The Franklin Group, named after Benjamin Franklin, a signatory to the American Declaration of Independence, promotes free markets, private property, and individual liberties, while the Shame group focuses on free and fair elections. Dafioni, or Sunset, describes itself as liberal nationalist and members swear an oath of allegiance.It is a colourful mix, and inevitably the groups do not always get on. “It can be difficult”, said one insider. But the factors uniting all those braving what has often been a brutal response from the riot police is that they are resolutely pro-European – and most were born between 1997 and 2012.This is a gen Z movement, with all the social media savvy and sensitivity this entails, said Konstantine Chakhunashvili, 32, a paediatrician who calls himself a classical liberal and is part of a protest group called Stubborn.

“Most of these groups are dominated by gen Z”, he said. “In my group of 130 people, only four or five of us are not gen Z.”

It is, he said, an impressive generation. “The younger people have it easier when they need to agree something. They come to a consensus. My generation and older are too rough. But, like with today’s event, they organise it in 30 minutes. With older groups and the politicians it is harder to do.”

Vano Abramishvili, a director at Caucasian House, an NGO that runs programmes for young people, said it should have been no surprise to the governing Georgian Dream party that young people would reject alignment with Moscow.

They grew up in a Georgia quite different from that of their parents, he said.

The country has been constitutionally committed to getting closer to the EU and Nato since the non-violent revolution of 2003 ended the Soviet-style presidency of Eduard Shevardnadze.

Abramishvili said people in their 20s were never likely to embrace what has appeared to be a sudden pivot, as the government criticised the west as part of a “global war party”, echoing the Kremlin’s narrative over the conflict in Ukraine and forcing Georgia to swallow the poison pill of a law that could kill its EU aspirations.

Cohen told jurors that he made approximately $3 million dollars from that book, which he wrote while serving 13 months in federal prison -- in part for campaign finance violations related to the Stormy Daniels payment.

On Tuesday, defense attorney Todd Blanche began confronting Cohen with portions of the memoir to suggest Cohen was "obsessed" with Trump.

"At that time, I was knee-deep into the cult of Donald Trump," Cohen said about his decade working for Trump.

Cohen's detailed descriptions in "Disloyal" about his meetings with Trump related to the catch-and-kill scheme could be a focus of the cross-examination, as defense attorneys attempt to draw out any differences between Cohen's testimony and what he wrote in the book.

Cohen's secret recording

On Monday, jurors heard a recording that Cohen secretly made of a conversation with Trump in September 2016, when the two discussed a plan to reimburse Pecker for his company's $150,000 hush money payment to Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who alleged a year-long affair with Trump that Trump denied took place.Asked on the stand to explain why he secretly recorded his boss, Cohen told jurors that he wanted to provide Pecker proof that Trump planned to repay him.

"It was so I could show it to David Pecker, and that way he would hear the conversation so that he would know that we are going to be paying him," Cohen said. "I also wanted him to remain loyal to Mr. Trump."

In his book, Cohen offered an additional explanation for the recording: that he made it in case Trump "threw me under the bus" one day.

"First, to show Pecker that I was asking Trump to repay the obligation, and second, to have a record of his participation if the conspiracy ever came out," Cohen wrote. "I was certain that Trump would throw me under the bus in that event, claiming ignorance and laying all the blame on a rogue lawyer, namely me."

Though Cohen wrote the book three years before Bragg would indict Trump, Cohen acknowledged in the book, "I had no idea how prescient I was."

The Stormy Daniels payment

Cohen testified that Trump was angry when Cohen first shared the news that Daniels was shopping her story in the fall of 2016.

"He was really angry with me," Cohen told jurors, saying Trump told him, "I thought you had this under control."

In Cohen's book, Trump sounded more subdued.

"He didn't explode as I expected, perhaps slightly chastened by the Access Hollywood episode and his vulnerable position in the campaign," Cohen wrote.

In the book, he said that after he recounted Daniels' allegations to Trump, they called Pecker for his input regarding potential damage to the campaign.